In any community there is the ever present possibility of the occurrence of emergency situations which may affect all or some portion of the residents. These emergency situations may range from relatively minor and localized occurrences to major catastrophes such as nuclear emergencies, hazardous material incidents, chemical spills, prison emergencies or the like. The conventional means for dealing with such emergencies entails an alarm triggered by the nuclear plant, prison facility, government installation, etc., with this alarm being transmitted to a Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) by conventional means such as an existing telephone or radio link or a plain old telephone (POT). The LEPC is a 911 emergency type facility such as a State Police or a fire house. Such facilities are existing and their operation is familiar. Exemplary of previously proposed and/or existing systems are the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,956,875, issued Sept. 11, 1990, to William B. Bernard et al describes an emergency radio alerting and warning system comprising an FM transmitter having multiple encoding means to permit the selection of all receivers in a given location and broadcasting to particular receivers in the selected location. The transmitter broadcasts signals with the encoded signals being followed by signals to activate audible alarms at the receivers which are appropriately encoded followed by transmission of the message over the loud speakers of the selected receivers. The receivers are receptive but inactive prior to receipt of an encoded signal specific to the receiver whereupon the receiver is fully activated to sound the audible alarm to alert persons in the vicinity followed by audibilizing of the broadcast message.
The foregoing system is apparently being offered for sale as advertised in an undated brochure titled "EAR" (not admitted to be prior art). This brochure describes an alternative to existing notification systems which rely on conventional radio, television, telephones and sirens. The system consists of single frequency FM receivers made available to users for installation in homes, offices, apartments and hotels. The receivers are activated by digital codes that are broadcast from low powered transmitters installed in emergency vehicles such as fire, police and ambulance vehicles.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,692,742, issued Sep. 8, 1987, to David T. Raizen et al, describes a security system for monitoring a plurality of locations by sensors which transmit alarm signals to a central control station by radio or telephone. Each alarm signal is encoded to identify the particular sensor location and alarm condition. The control station comprises a computer which correlates the received alarm signals with information stored in the computer memory to identify which of a plurality of satellite stations are to be notified of a particular alarm condition at a particular monitored location, what correlated information is to be transmitted to such satellite station, and whether to effect such transmission by radio or telephone. The computer actuates a radio or telephone transmitter in the control station to transmit correlated signals to the appropriate satellite stations, and may also actuate a speech synthesizer so that such signals may be transmitted as synthetic speech.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,856,047, issued Aug. 8, 1989, to James R. Saunders. The Saunders Patent describes an automated remote telemetry paging system for providing remote pager notification of changes in selected operating parameters measured at a specific site location. The selected parameters and the unacceptable changes therein are provided in the form of a plurality of the electrical status signals each representative of one of the selected parameters. The remote telemetry unit (RTU) includes a programmed microprocessor and a status signal receiving circuit for receiving and electronically isolating the received status signals. An interrogation circuit controlled by the microprocessor central processing unit (CPU) scans the digital status signals, and a discrimination circuit controlled by the CPU reads the digital status signals. The digital status signals are transmitted to appropriate pager communications equipment for display in remote paging devices. If it is determined that an unacceptable status signal deviation has occurred the system generates a digital status message identifying the remote site location and the selected parametric deviation, and then energizes a telephone interface when the digital status message is completed and dials preselected pager telephone numbers stored in the memory means through the telephone central switching equipment and pager network equipment.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,887,291, issued Dec. 12, 1989, to James T. Stillwell. This patent describes a system for automatically monitoring the status and safety of buildings and reporting the existence and kind of emergency to distant locations. The emergencies may be burglaries, fires, temperature excursions, extremely high or low flow rates, temperatures, pressures, etc. The system employs a plurality of facility monitors each receiving the input from a plurality of field detectors. Each facility monitor detects conditions at a specific location. When a detector in a facility monitor encounters an emergency event, that monitor transmits across a telephone line a signal which identifies the abnormal detector and identifies the kind of emergency event for which that detector would be activated and the magnitude of the emergency. Each facility has its own telephone line. The encoded message sent on the telephone line is received at the telephone company central office which forwards the information along a telephone line to a paging company. The information from the telephone line is received by a message processing computer which in turn encodes the information in a manner compatible with the radio transmitter. The transmitter broadcasts the information to a digital pocket pager to produce a display which indicates that the designated detector at the facility has enunciated an event which deserved immediate attention. The display also carries an alphanumeric message describing the nature and/or magnitude of the emergency event. The owner of the pager may then make an appropriate decision as to what type of response to make.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,993,059, issued Feb. 12, 1991, to James L. Smith et al. This patent shows an alarm system which includes both a land-based communication path and a wireless communication path between a protected premise and a public switched telephone network (PSTN) in order to communicate the existence of an alarm condition between the protected premise and an alarm monitoring station. The PSTN communicates with the alarm monitoring station via telephone line. A terminal alarm control panel includes a series of relays which upon receipt of an alarm signal from an alarm sensor connect a local telephone via a telephone line to a subscriber telephone line which is connected to the PSTN. Communication is thereby established between the protected premise and the PSTN via a subscriber line which is the land-based portion of the alarm system. Communication is thereby passed from the PSTN to the alarm monitoring station. The terminal alarm control panel may include automatic dialing circuits for dialing the telephone number of the alarm monitoring station via a subscriber telephone line or the telephone number may be dialed from a local telephone. The patent also shows a redundant communication path between the terminal alarm control panel and the PSTN in the event of a failure of the land-based portion of the alarm system. Thus the system includes a cellular type radio/telephone system including a cellular transceiver connected to the terminal alarm control panel. When an alarm condition exists at the detected premise the cellular transceiver transmits a radio frequency signal via an antenna to an antenna of a mobile telephone switching office (MTSO). The MTSO is interconnected to the PSTN.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,219,698, issued Aug. 26, 1980, to Joseph A. Birilli et al. This patent describes an alarm system which employs a radio frequency transmitter and a frequency compatible receiver that couples into a telephone system to ring a remote telephone and deliver a message into the receiver of the remote telephone. The emergency transmitter includes a small battery powered radio frequency transmitter. The receiver comprises a receiver/dialer unit having a continuously recycling magnetic tape transport and a coupling device for coupling the unit into a telephone lines. The magnetic tape transport contains a recording of a series of DTMF signals indicative of the number to be dialed and message to be delivered. When the emergency transmitter is activated it sends out an RF signal which is received by the receiver/dialer unit. Receipt of the signal by the receiver/dialer activates the magnetic tape transport and causes the unit to be accessed into a telephone number is dialed and the recorded message delivered.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,560,657 issued Feb. 2, 1971, to Paul L. Stone et al. This patent describes a burglar, fire or other alarm system. The actuation of the alarm closes a switch to energize a radio transmitter. The signal from the transmitter is detected by a centrally located receiver which actuates a switch. Closure of that switch causes energization of a tape deck to generate a recorded audio signal. The audio signal is effective to dial a predetermined number and upon the called phone going off-hook to deliver a prerecorded warning message. The device may dial a second number or redial the same number.